These are previous posts grouped by category...texty, digressive, but there they are. Explaining, in round-about fashion, a confusion of moments. The basics: diagnosed with Asperger's in 2005, at the age of 30, after a period of social isolation.
Sessions With a Good Psychologist
- a session on Asperger's
- on it's signs and symptoms (black eyes and bruises)
- on sensory awareness
- on Pinnochio
- on knowing what to say
- on depression and the first guy
Approaching AS/Bitter Trust
- part one, two, three, four, five.
Six Social Interactions (or: "People confuse me")
- M at the bus station
- M at the art show
- lost at a party
- Asperger's Syndrome meets Alpha Male Syndrome
- roaming around with Jen Ling: college
- roaming around with Jen Ling: grocery store
Six Sessions with a Moron Psychologist
- session the first
- the second
- the third
- number four (or: "going off the rails")
- five of six
- and the sixth
Miscellaneous
- M versus Counselor: fifth grade
- writing about AS
- Sensory Crayons
- I play. Mom watches.
- family disconnected
- constructing the marionette
Making friends
- Part: One, Two, Three, Four
Awkward Love
- Part: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine
nihil novi
- M
- random selections from a journal, running from 2005 to the present. including: a disposition gray, a syndrome vexatious, whatnots assorted, and pseudo-transcripts from therapy.
9 comments:
it's such a treat .. i read one or two a day .. as long as i can access it somewhere i'm happy!
ok, so here's the thing (unedited) ..
i have been somewhat conflicted when it has come to commenting on many of these posts.
some of them i can relate to - aspergers meets alpha male CRACKED ME UP! i am the only woman on a desk of men who are all crazed sports fans . i sooo play the role of you in that interchange at least once a week. i never know which game, which sport, which why i should i care.
but then i read some others and i get a little stuck. for example, in reading 'i play mom watches' i start to see undeniable connections between the way you describe your experience as a child and a lot of what i see in my beautiful daughter. just yesterday, i posted a piece that alluded to kendall's love of speed when she was little. how she loved the wind in her hair when we'd run with her stroller. 'faster! faster!' she'd yell.
the way you felt the bark of the tree, dug your fingernails into it. that IS my baby. bark, soil, wood, everything.
we went to a pumpkin patch this weekend and i took photos of her as she ran her fingernails along the row of pumpkins, then stopped periodically to scratch at one and then another. that is how she takes it in - how her fingers read the patterns and textures of her world.
but i'm not sure if it's appropriate for me to draw these parallels. i wonder if i'm creating them, willing them into existence because i need to think that kendall will, by virtue of her diagnosis (and this awareness that i fight so hard for) someday know that she is not alone in experiencing the world the way she does. that maybe there are so many people who experience the world 'differently' that the word 'different' will lose its meaning. different than what?
so i hesitate.
but then i get to the crayons and it's just undeniable. it's almost eerie. this is exactly what kendall does.
her fine motor skills were slow to develop (still are a bit 'lagging' relative to her peers) so she didn't start using crayons until about a year and 1/2 ago. and she would absolutely not use a crayon until she had 'made it nudey.'
whenever someone would hand her a little pack of them in a restaurant, she immediately started picking away at them until she had a mess of shredded paper and a handful of smooth crayons. when she was unable to maneuver her little fingers to get the job done, she would shove them at us and insist that we do it for her. she would even grab her big sister's crayons and do the same thing with them. at first we tried to stop her. they weren't our crayons, after all. she was making a mess. then we realized that is something she NEEDED to do in order to use them. so we started bringing our own crayons so she could pick them apart at will.
once they're smooth, she runs them along her upper lip, smells them, touches them to her lips. they are a sensory buffet.
and red. she's all about red. i mean ALL ABOUT red.
and so i (finally) comment.
thank you so much for sharing all of this.
i've been terrified posting this stuff..worried about how some people might react...so you have no idea how much your words mean to me. i'm not at a place where i can present a necessarily upbeat point of view, and it's scary to think about the impact that could have. i just know that when I received the diagnosis, i read a lot of material and i reacted to all of it...sometimes positively, sometimes negatively...so i don't know. i'm assuming that for everyone writing about these issues: it's tough to express these things and feel one-hundred percent comfortable. it's like: "should i be saying this? shouldn't i be hiding some of these things?"
so thank you.
"i'm not sure if it's appropriate for me to draw these parallels."
i'm having the same fear. it happens when i read something online, but especially when i write a post. a lot of this i'm looking back on after many years, so the fear is: am i shoehorning certain memories into the diagnosis? Retroactively applying it, where it may not apply?
i think at this point i'm comfortable: i'm only using the word Asperger's when I know it fits...some of the sensory issues that were undeniable. more tricky are the experiences that may very well have other causes, like social anxiety, depression, and so on.
i guess that's what makes it so complicated: even knowing how to refer to ones own experiences is difficult. at this point, it's just getting down to: making as many distinctions as possible...and going with a kind of gut instinct.
it's not a comfortable mix. seems like we're all just kind of feeling it out here, winging it.
blech. i'm going to e-mail you my mind so that you can organize it for me.
but here's the thing, and i know i've said this before .. you present it all in context .. the tough stuff is part of the human experience and it sure as hell is part of the experience of going through life without any kind of explanation for what you were going through or for the ways in which you experienced things differently from the way you saw other people experiencing their lives. if you wrote about sunshine and rainbows all day i'd have some serious doubts about your credibility.
you are honest. you tell it like it (was). from the comments that i've read, you have an audience out here in the ether who gets that and who is very supportive of you.
those of us who have kids on the spectrum read a blog like yours for a couple of reasons. of course it starts with the fact that you just plain write well - far better than you think you do.
there's much to be learned from your observations of the human condition and the way that you view it through your lens. and the sarcasm? well, you had me at hello with the sarcasm.
but we also read because we hope to get some insight into what our kids experience. you can't speak for a group of people whose lives and characteristics are arguably vastly different, nor do any of us expect you to. but there are similarities in your experiences. you do share certain attributes and you do share some of the same incredible strengths. i'm not being presumptuous, i've been reading.
so, that being said, there is some value for us as parents in learning about what you've gone through. where you've found comfort and where you think that having had some support would have made a difference. maybe we see ways in which we can really help our kids. maybe we see some ways that we may have thought would be helpful that you show us, well, not so much.
ok, so now i'm like a comment stalker .. but i had started writing the previous comment and run out of room, so i had cut and pasted and well, long story ,, bottom line, pls disregard the last one and here's what i was trying to post:
But here's the thing, and I know I've said this before .. You present it all in context - The tough stuff is part of the human experience and it sure as hell is part of the experience of going through life without any kind of explanation for what you were going through or for the ways in which you experience things differently from the way you saw other people experiencing their lives. if you wrote about sunshine and rainbows all day I'd have some serious doubts about your credibility.
You are honest. You honor your own experience by telling it like it is (was). From the comments that I've read, you have an audience out here in the ether who gets that and who is very supportive of you.
So why do I read your blog?
It starts with the fact that you just plain write well - far better than you think you do. I envy you your ability.
There's much to be learned from your observations of the human condition and the way that you view it through your particular lens - like DeToqueville without the whole political philosophy blah. And the sarcasm? Well, you had me at hello with the sarcasm.
And I can relate to you. Hell, I think a lot of what you talk about (especially social anxiety) is stuff we can all relate to at our core. Perhaps it wasn’t as debilitating as it was for you, but it was (is) there. Want to know a secret? I hate parties. I mean I HATE them. But I not only attend them, I throw them. And then I can’t wait for them to be over. Sometimes I excuse myself to the ladies’ room just because I can’t think of anywhere else to go. Reading about you walking the boundaries, trying out your ‘nods’ at the perimeter of each cluster of people at the art gallery .. I GET that. And I get it on a level that most people probably do, but even if they do, they don’t talk about.
But of course I’d be lying if I said I don’t also read because I hope to get some insight into what my daughter might be experiencing. By no means do I think that you can or should speak for a group of people whose lives and characteristics are dramatically and vastly different from one another. But there are undeniable similarities in your experiences. You do share certain attributes and you do share some of the same incredible strengths. I'm not being presumptuous. I've been reading.
So, that being said, there is some value for me as a parent in learning about what you've gone through. In hearing where you've found comfort and where you think that having had some support (or a different kind of support) would have made a difference. Perhaps there’s something I can learn from that. Maybe I’ll see some thing that I may have thought would be helpful that you show us, well, not so much. Trust me, I’ll never hand my kid a button that says, “I’m special.” (OK, so I wouldn’t have done that exactly, but you get the point.)
But even the things that may seem small to you, like the crayons, there’s a validation in reading that my kid is not the only one with that experience. There’s an insight in that small tidbit, an ‘aha!’, into WHY she does what she does that helps me be a better parent to her. That’s invaluable. I knew that she needed to peel the crayons; I didn’t know why. Why is a big, big piece. And I don’t just take it and cut and paste it. I watch her. It makes sense. It fits.
As you know, I am hell bent on raising awareness to make people more tolerant, more understanding. But since my daughter is 5, I’m the one who essentially does the talking. The more understanding I have, the more insight I have, the better armed I am to go out and educate other people. Otherwise, I’m talking only as an observer. My empathy for her can only take me so far into her brain. In some ways, you help me get just a little further.
I don’t want to imply that there’s a heavy load of responsibility in this. Please don’t read it that way. I’m just trying to explain to you how much value there is in your writing, in any way that you choose to do it and in any part of yourself and your experience that you choose to share. There are no judgments out here, my friend. Just support and gratitude.
"I think a lot of what you talk about...is stuff we can all relate to at our core."
I have to tell you, I agree...and almost more than anything else, this is what has absolutely tormented me throughout my life. I've had a hard time connecting with people...there's been so much rejection, and I always think, "Come on...am I THAT fucking different?!" It has always felt like this stuff...it's shared, there to at least some extent in everyone, at least some of the time.
I've gone through a phase lately where I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been trying to watch as many movies and television shows as possible about the spectrum (tv shows in particular have been working it into their story lines: house, eli stone, and so on). what else? that "mozart and the whale movie". Some other, terrible films that I won't even mention for fear that someone might watch them.
Anyway, because of what you were saying about relating to some of this...it's irritating to find that these films, shows, focus exclusively on the differences. People want to rubberneck this stuff. Audiences with no connection to spectrum issues, they want stories that serve up the "interesting" quirks or the most unusual behaviors...when it seems far more interesting (and relevant) to present what you're talking about: the commonalities...the overlap between the spectrum and "normalcy" (or whatever word I'm supposed to use).
I'm sort of rambling, but it'd be nice if there were a focus on differences that, at their core, are really just differences in degree. Even with sensory issues, some of the more debilitating difficulties: we all have senses...five of them even. It can't be a total disconnect. I don't know. There are definitely traits unique to the spectrum, but by and large, it's the familiar, the known, the every day...just louder, too intense, more vibrant.
Something being addressed now by blogs and memoirs... but with popular film, television, you can see the rubbernecking, the "difference" fetish persisting.It's annoying.
"There are no judgments out here, my friend. Just support and gratitude."
The gratitude is reciprocated, Jess. You have this contagious viewpoint, compassion, I'm trying to learn from it, emulate it. Thank you.
no comment will suffice .. a post is brewing here . please stand by
I'm probably completely naive and totally not qualified to even post here, but I'm shameless soo.....sometimes I wonder if people are just born not accepting of crap society where 'normality' is based on the capitilism and everything that goes with it...they like to live life as thier self, not as a group or sheep member, doimg thier own thing. Life makes you look and live...or not...and then people get medicated through something whether it's food, alcohol, drugs, whatever it is. We live in a dehumanised world. And the more I read about people's honest interpretation of this life, that is not full of roses because it's not (afterall, life is nothing isn't it and we bring the meaning?), the more I appreciate people. So thank you person M for your wonderful contributions through your writings, regardless of whatever you have been diagnosed with.
I love that you've made these categories. Thank you! Soooo helpful.
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